


The Trainwreck

by A_Candle_For_Sherlock



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Abuse, Addiction, And John loves her a lot, Harry's really hard on herself, M/M, Recovery, wedding worries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 01:31:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7146659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Candle_For_Sherlock/pseuds/A_Candle_For_Sherlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry wasn't expecting John to ask her to stand up with him. She's the addict. She's a trainwreck. She's going to let him down. But he wants her there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trainwreck

**Author's Note:**

> TW: self-hatred, brief references to addiction and emotional abuse

When she saw him through the cafe window, waiting, sitting solidly with his back to her, he looked like Dad. Squared-off military shoulders, dark jacket, silver hair. She felt breathless. It’s Johnny, she told herself, it’s just John.

She leaned toward the window to get a look at her reflection. She looked okay. A proper haircut from her regular barber. One of the things she’d really, really missed. A proper haircut and her own bed. Liberty, nowhere to be, nobody checking in on her. Privacy. Her books, her kitchen. John.

She pushed through the door of the shop, Speedy's--little place, kind of sweet, potted plants hanging in the window. “Cup of coffee, black,” she told the man at the counter and saw John’s head lift where he was sitting, saw the beginnings of a smile.

“Harry,” he said, when she sat down. “Hi.”

“Hi, yourself.” He looked happy. It was strange how something so complicated for her sat so easily with him. He was happy, and he was looking at her, waiting to hear that she was happy, too. That rehab had fixed her.

“Did my time. Life on the inside’s no joke,” she said, hoping he’d laugh.

“Staged a jailbreak?”

“No, I finished the program.” She knows she sounds hurt. He was kidding. She thinks he was kidding.

“I know, Harry. Harry.” He reaches out, touches her hand carefully. She sits very still. “I’m so proud of you.”

Shit. He never used to talk like that. What was she supposed to say? “I’m proud of me, too, I guess. It was hell but I needed it. No more half-arsed six week stays.”

“Yeah, I never quite saw the point of those,” he admitted. He kept smiling. He really did seem glad to see her. It was odd. It was good. If she could keep this going.

“You look happy,” she said.

“I am.”

“That’s good.”

“It is, yeah. Doesn’t come easy for us, does it.”

She laughs. “I was just thinking that it did, for you.”

His smile slips away and he raises a hand to rub his forehead, looking suddenly exhausted. Shit. “Johnny, I’m sorry.”

He takes a breath. Lets it out slowly. “What makes you think this came easy?”

This. His good life. His clean-cut hair and his clear-eyed look. The flat above the cafe, with the gorgeous detective. Three weeks into rehab, he’d come for a visit with the man in tow and they’d been holding hands and God, she couldn’t believe it.

“You’re still with Sherlock?”

He blinks, shifts visibly out of his frustration. Ready to try again. “Yeah. Yeah, just past a year together.” He goes soft around the eyes at that, soft and lovey. He really does like him. While John had started quizzing a worker at the center about her treatment plan, “What the hell? I thought he was straight!” she’d hissed to Sherlock and then gone hot all over. Wrong thing to say. Again. Leave it to the trainwreck.

But Sherlock had answered, totally serious, “So did I.” And when John stopped talking to the worker and turned around, confused, they were laughing.

Sherlock was all right.

“He taking care of you?” she demanded.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.” He sounded so sweet. She couldn’t get over it. “Harry? I--we--we’re getting married.”

It hits her right in the gut. “Oh, my God.”

“Harry?” He reaches across the table, grabs her hand. She looks down. He’s wearing a ring. Sherlock gave him a ring.

“He proposed?”

“Yeah.” His face is all lit up with hope and happiness and wanting.

“Johnny.” Oh my God, he wants this, he really wants this. After everything that had happened. Marriage wasn’t easy for the Watsons.

“Will you come to the wedding?”

She takes a deep breath, lets it out. Takes another. “Yeah. Of course. You really love him, then.”

He smiles slowly. “I really, really do.”

“And he loves you?” she demands, even though she knows. It had been obvious, every time they’d come. The looks they gave each other.

“Always has.” He sighs. “If I’d been as brave as you, maybe this could have happened a long time ago.”

“Um. Johnny? You remember who you’re talking to? Shit sister, gets her courage from a bottle of whisky?”

“Is that really what you think?” When she stays silent, he shifts in his seat, sits up straighter. “God. Harry, you’re the bravest person I know.”

He looks like their Dad. He looks like their Dad and he’s talking in this weird, soft voice and looking right at her.

“Harry, you’re still here. Still standing. You’ve made it. He’s gone, and we’ve made it this far. There’s no reason we can’t be happy now. I--Would you be my best man?”

“Your what?” She’s startled into a laugh. Rubs tears from her eyes and frowns at him.

“My, ah, my bridesmaid. Sorry.”

“I like best man.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Why not?”

“I’d have to wear a dress.”

“You can have a suit. Tails. A lovely tie.”

“Won’t the other bridesmaids hate that? Me in a suit.”

“Who, Molly? She and Greg are standing up with Sherlock. She won’t care. You and Mike will be on my side.”

Mike. Mike was nice. “I can’t make a speech.”

“That’s okay. I don’t need another best man’s speech, Sherlock’s will do me for a lifetime.” He smiles, a private smile. She wishes he hadn’t blown off that wedding, just so she could have known what that smile meant. Not sorry she missed seeing him with Mary, though.

“What about the drinks? I--it’s awfully soon to have really nice champagne just sitting around within reach.”

“Harry. I wouldn’t do that to you. We’ll serve lemonade. Sherlock likes lemonade.”

“Does he want me in the wedding?”

“You know he does. I didn’t expect you two to get on, I really didn’t.”

“We’re both little shits,” she says, and then hates herself. But he laughs aloud.

“Yeah, you are, a bit. But you’re my little shits.” He sounds so fond.

“God. This is too weird." She knows she's staring. "You’ve changed, you know?”

His smile is sad. “The first time he died? I couldn't believe it, all the stuff I hadn’t said. I'd never even thought to tell him that he was my best friend. The best man I knew. The most human. You know what the last thing I said to his face was? ‘You machine.’" He shakes his head. “And when he was up on the roof--there weren't words. So when he came back I had to tell him. I told him all those things I hadn’t said and it was incredible. It was like he was coming awake. I hadn’t realized how much he hadn’t known.” He looks at her solemnly. “I just--I just want to be sure you know. I love you.”

“Johnny.” Her voice comes out funny. “I love you too.”

“So you’ll be my best man?”

“I’m terrified.”

“I know.”

“I’ll mess it up.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” She sighs.

“Really? You’ll do it?” He’s half out of his seat. God, he’s going to hug her.

“Yes. Really. Okay.” He’s hugging her and she’s crying and he might be crying a little, too and the Watsons don’t do that, but maybe this time it’s all right. It’s fine.

They’re going to be fine.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Trainwreck](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14508324) by [Lockedinjohnlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lockedinjohnlock/pseuds/Lockedinjohnlock)




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